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A few weeks is quite reasonable for someone who knows the game - my gnome wizard just reached lvl 10, with about 30 hours on him, including RP time. And I'm not sure wis and cha have much to do with it, because he has 12 and 10, respectively.

Nylo wrote:A few weeks is quite reasonable for someone who knows the game

The difference is for someone who knows the game and who doesn't.

If your FIRST character is a wizard...I can see where meditate would be handy at level 1 cause, after a certain area, you really don't KNOW where to go to progress unless you talk to people. Which is a good thing, because that encourages RP in an RP enforced environment. Now that I think about it, them and priests are probably the most RP heavy characters to make (in the early levels) since they can't go it alone at low levels without difficulty.

My second character was a wizard, and it was difficult at first without meditate but once you get meditate, ...use it? It's a slow start for wizards, sure, but...holy crap once you get the right tools can you shoot up in levels. No matter what game I play on, wizards are the hardest to level for a reason - because they're freaking -powerful- from mid to cap.

Agree with Lylena. My first character piddled around as a wizard... I took a break, ran a rogue for a while, then a fighter, then came back to wizard and blew peoples' minds.

He also blew up other stuff.

@Selveem: This was an elven wizard, not a priest. I think he has 12 wis/cha.

On my wizard with 8 Wis and 8 Cha, it's taken him a LONG time. In groups and outside of them, I've seen my group mates fly past me in levels. I don't know if Wis and Cha no longer affect experience. I can probably test this weekend to see if it's still ridiculously difficult to get experience on him.

Major necro warning. tl;dr last paragraph.

What I like about the current regeneration rates:
1. They add some pause and downtime.
2. It is a good reflection of how it would be like in a character's daily life.

What I don't like about the current regeneration rates:
1. Too much downtime distracts from playability.
2. If you are grouped with others, people's attention start to wander. A good use of time will be for RP - I agree. However, we have to accept that different people have different playstyles and what they consider fun.
3. On the last spellcaster I created, I spent about 200 hours twinking from level 1-10, because I know it will set me up better when I get out into the world and help me die less, even though experience does not carry over after level 10. I was fairly certain that I had grandmaster in meditate by the time I was level 10. About 2/3 of the time was spent waiting for spell regen.

The suggestions below should address the points in what I dislike while keeping the points of what I like. That should summarise people's arguments on both sides of the fence.

In summary, do I think there is something broken with how it is currently? No. Do I think it can be better? Yes. Does it matter to me? It doesn't, I'm used to it and I know what to do so that I don't get bogged down by it.


tl;dr - Some suggestions (with liberal plagiarism):
1. Halve the waiting time on the current regeneration rates.
2. A trade lag option where the player cannot break but can be broken by mobs attacking which recharges the characters spells. The player is still allowed to speak and emote during this time. Make it so that the character must be below a certain value of spells (50%?) to use this.
3. (Off-topic) Update other regeneration rates as well.

A slight necro bump:

I believe that wizards should get meditate at level 1. Right now, it takes 10-20 minutes just to gain enough power to cast one spell. As a result, wizards are resulted to physical combat to level to 9 and at that point, it stops being a challenge and just a flat out tedious grind. I like the choices in character creation (choosing what spell you start with) and having your spells start at amateur, so you can "grow" into being a wizard. But since it's impossible to actual cast spells with any regularity, I feel like that "growth" is lost.

When I first started with FK I choose wizard. I usually like to play a wizard, or sorcerer if its available, because they can be powerhouses in later levels.
During the low-level all spell-casters are prone to death and mayhem. Waiting around for spells to regen often causes this, as they are usually not able to fight their way back out of a bad situation.

When I DM a game, I often do a split spell slot/mana system. At low levels, cantrips are cast a certain number of times based on mana, like a sorcerer's daily number of spells. They can memorize a set number of spells, and then cast any of them as many times as they'd like till the mana is used up. What also happens is they use up the memorized slot as well, so they have to reprepare later on.
I find that they spend less time waiting around for their spells, and more time working on the adventure.
I usually only award this to cantrips and level 1 spells, so that they aren't over powered later on.

That system is actually pretty nifty, but I think it's too much work for levels 1-9. We'd have to standardize things, change the UI, implement new rules, etc.

At level 7, with 16 INT and spellcasting prodigy feat (equivalent of 18 int), I only have eight level 1 and 2 spell slots. Since at amateur, shield and armour (which are somewhat necessary for the non-armour wearing wizards) only last a battle or two, most slots have to be reserved for those. Bringing in meditate really won't make wizards suddenly OP at low levels or significantly speed things up. The meditate skill will be a low level and it will take a while to prepare your spells anyways.

I propose meditate become available at level 5 since killing hundreds of dummies just to get to level 9 is extremely tedious and slow.

Athon wrote:Since at amateur, shield and armour (which are somewhat necessary for the non-armour wearing wizards) only last a battle or two, most slots have to be reserved for those.

Really? As a ~L10 wizard I found I only needed one slot for armour and maybe two for shield. The rest I can fill up with missile, burning hands, whatever. If I could have had meditate at that level I could have been killing a lot more interesting things, since I could have actually used some offensive spells without having to rest for half an hour after every fight to regenerate them.

Well, armour and shield are only amateur when you start. Shield literally lasts 2 battles for me right now. The +4 AC is much more significant at these levels than the 1d4 that magic missile does at this point. Once you raise your skill in shield/armour, then you need you use less slots for them (especially if you use extend spell).

Edit: I can essentially dedicate all my spell slots to magic missile or burning hands and burn them all in 1 or 2 battles and then sleep for 20 mins IRL just to get the spells back or I can devote all the slots to the defensive spells that last significantly longer and slowly kill things with my quarterstaff. Either way, it's not a good process.

I recently leveled both a rogue and a warrior and they had no issues power-grinding levels 6-9. The only downtime was waiting for all the dummies to respawn.

I honestly just don't see all that much difference between a wizard having to slog and grind their way to 10 (9 even) when they can then get meditate (and still earn a fortune in the snookery, compared to the danger level faced there...that is, none) for a huge xp cost, which can then be replaced by killing more mobs in the snookery, earning another small fortune and facing danger level none...

And my fighter character, who admittedly does more damage, but whose armour until 9 was almost as bad as a wizard I imagine (since it stunk), who didn't get any more dex bonus than a wizard with high dex would, who had one attack a round, etc...

I mean, so it takes a while. It SHOULD take a while. If you're in a hurry to play a RPG, you should be playing WoW, imo. *shrug*

It's about the roleplay, not the advancement.

I think the point of the whole meditation discussion isn't about being in a rush, but rather about a class that's difficult to play starting off being just a bit easier.

I'm not trying to discredit you, but I think this is a better topic to discuss when you've played through a wizard character. It is a weaker class to begin with, and it's easier to understand where the discussion is coming from when you've played the class in question.

Not every character is from Waterdeep. Yes, the temples are risk-free, but extremely slow. As I said above, meditate really won't speed up the progress of a wizard class, but instead actually let the player play their class. Up until you get meditate, the spell casting is extremely negligent.

A wizard has to use his spells to get to that point of comparable armor to what a warrior wears from the temples. And the spells expire extremely quickly. One attack per round is essentially the same as having multiple attacks per round because at that level, your BAB is horrendously low, even as a warrior, to make the extra attacks meaningful. Still, having +3/+3 from your STR bonus is a huge deal, especially when you get 1d8 weapons compared to 1d6 for a wizard.

I'm all for challenges in this game. But at some point, you have to differentiate between being slow as a challenge and being slow simply for the sake of being slow. Using WoW is simply a straw man argument and has no bearing here.

Tandria wrote:I think the point of the whole meditation discussion isn't about being in a rush, but rather about a class that's difficult to play starting off being just a bit easier.

I'm not trying to discredit you, but I think this is a better topic to discuss when you've played through a wizard character. It is a weaker class to begin with, and it's easier to understand where the discussion is coming from when you've played the class in question.

But why would a total fledgling get a really stong ability? It doesn't make RP sense, IMO.

Ok, well, I'll play one to 9, and if my opinion changes, I'll edit this

They're extremely slow for everyone. And at low levels, playing a wizard should be about playing a low-level wizard. Which, just as in every edition of D+D, is difficult. And since a wizard engages in physical combat even when they become a spellcaster, learning how to fight without spells is a necessity, IC/RP wise, IMO.

So one attack per round is the same for a warrior and a wizard, except for strength. And who says every warrior starts with 16 str? I didn't, because it wasn't in character. And as a result, it's harder to advance. And I knew this when I made the character, but since it's about RP, I did it anyway. And the difference between 1-8 and 1-6 is very small, statistically speaking. It's 4.5 vs 3.5 average.

It was a brief moment of emotion. I'm not entirely mechanical.

And that was a joke, not an insult. Discussions should be about fun over fact just as much as the game should, IMO. I don't view this as 'The Great Debate' or 'The McLaughlin Group'.

Anthalas wrote:Personally I like meditate at level 1 for Wizards and Priests as it gets the best results for the least amount of effort.

The only reason I haven't created a caster yet is because I found it a pain to get out of the newbie training area and into roleplay. Getting out anywhere under level 6 means you're a free snack to most hostile mobiles running around.

I really wish that there was an option to multiclass but seeing as how the skills system is set up, this would not be feasible for the time being.

suggestion that might work though:
Allow for 25 or even 30 special levels above 50 that can be taken at any time once the character moves into a guild of their choice

These levels are for the sole purpose of multiclassing
These levels do not grant extra hp or stamina but do allow for spell levels and abilities if the taken class is capable of such.
Restrict certain classes like paladins and druids, maybe even rangers, from multiclassing.
Restrict the number of classes a character can take to a total of 2

In the end though, this is only a suggestion.

I actually have run across another game that works similar to this way and think it's an excellent idea. After level 50 a character can start to become stale. I say can, as certainly there is always RP to be had and a few skills to train up, but for some characters it is a ceiling. Being able to choose a second class from level 50-70(80) would be outstanding. We'd have a greater variety of intriguing characters due to the different combinations of skills that can come from multi-classing. I agree: no new stats, but open up skills.

*Edit: Now that I've gotten a bit off-topic. I think wizards need meditate at level one. If wizards are award cantrips on creation and level one spells, it seems ICly appropriate that the young wizard would have also studied meditation when the acquired knowledge of these basic practices.

In the running theme of extremely slow regeneration rates:

I now have meditate... and it barely improves my spell regeneration. I have downtimes of 15+ minutes to regen 8 spells. I know clearly that the rulebook states you have to wait 8 hours to regain your spells. And as been said repeatedly, that motion doesn't fly well in FK due to DMs being able to advance everyone 8 hours on a whim. It makes it even harder when mobs have significantly more HP than by the rulebook, so casters fly through their spells just to kill a handful of mobs.

I tested this on my high-level wizard, with GM meditate. It was taking 10 minutes just to regen a few level 0 and level 1 spells.

The point I'm making is that the playability is diminished - and I'm certain it affects priests and rangers too. Downtime does not make the game harder, downtime makes the game less enjoyable. I'm not saying that wizards and priests should now turn into sorcerors; but there is a happy medium that we need to find (honestly, spell regen like it used to be was just fine - why was this changed?!?!).

The only 'downtime' a non-caster has is regeneration HP/stamina, which happens pretty quickly. But I've thought of a suggestion:

Greatly increase the regen rate of spells while in meditate. However, meditate decreases HP/stamina regen rates by X amount.

Athon wrote:In the running theme of extremely slow regeneration rates:

The only 'downtime' a non-caster has is regeneration HP/stamina, which happens pretty quickly. But I've thought of a suggestion:

Greatly increase the regen rate of spells while in meditate. However, meditate decreases HP/stamina regen rates by X amount.

Good idea, IMO. Focusing mentally detracts from physical recovery. It's a good middle ground. But I still think meditate at level one is, quite frankly and without meaning offense, ridiculous.

As a primary player of spellcasters;

The current state of meditate has led my physical weak characters to seek fighters and stronger ones to use spells with precision rather than spell-spamming.

Really if meditate was faster, we could have perpetually-buffed spellcaster just as we did, and buffs are meant to be used situationally rather than by default, why play a warrior/rogue if you can have a load of protection spells all day? The point of playing a spellcaster is that limited times a day they outshine non-spellcasters but otherwise they are second in skill to martial classes. There are different classes because the point of them is to cooperate, sharing their strengths, and offsetting their weakness, in the moment spellcasters don't need to care (and caring about the number of spells should be a part of the strategy of playing a spellcaster) you are nullifying their main weakness.

If you need a good portion of your spells/prayers to bring down a single mob, chances are that you are not in an area according your level or that you should bring with you another character. Everyone should honestly acknowledge that if you need three or more times all your spells you shouldn't even try that area, rather than following patterns of kill-meditate-kill, (or seeking help which would be ideal).

My two copper.

Also; I understand that FK isn't a tabletop session.

What I would propose would be fair and still giving spellcasters a warning that spells aren't infinite:

In the place of two hours (a day in FK) you can meditate as much as you would like.

The first time you meditate you recover your spells very quickly, the second time half as quick as the first time, the third time half as quick as the second time and so on..

After two hours, the first time you meditate you recover your spells as quick as the first time you meditated two hours ago, and successive meditation sessions are less productive, just like two hours ago. Perhaps you could get an echo indicating that your mind is refreshed and ready for spell preparation after the two hours reset.